Written by Branislav Staníček.
Parliament is set to discuss the situation in Serbia during the Plenary Session held in Strasbourg this week and current anti-government protests and the Serbian authorities’ violent response in particular. President Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) has governed the country since 2012, with a heavy concentration of power, media control and a weak system of checks and balances. In December 2023, just 20 months after the previous elections, Serbia held snap parliamentary elections. The SNS won by 46.7 %, far ahead of the newly formed opposition coalition Serbia Against Violence (SPN) at 23.6 %. Nonetheless, anti-government protests erupted again in November 2024, following the collapse of the renovated Novi Sad railway station. These protests intensified during summer 2025, accompanied by violence and renewed calls for snap elections. Vučić’s second and final five-year presidential term ends in 2027, when parliamentary elections are also due.
The renovated canopy collapse at the railway station on 1 November 2024, in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, killed 16 people. Just two days before, the European Commission’s 2024 report on Serbia and its EU membership prospects warned that ‘Serbia has a tendency to circumvent its legislation in this area [of public procurement] through intergovernmental agreements and special laws’ (in Chapter 5 on ‘Public Procurement’). The reconstruction of the railway station in Novi Sad was part of a ‘capital state project’ – the construction of a high-speed railway from Belgrade to Budapest – and was based on a bilateral agreement between Serbia and China not subject to the country’s law on public procurement. Public outrage forced Serbia’s Prime Minister Miloš Vučević, Construction Minister Goran Vesić and the Mayor of Novi Sad to resign. Every day at 11:52 am – the moment the station roof collapsed – protesters halt traffic for 16 minutes of silence, to honour the 16 lives lost.
This climate of protests shifted in mid-2025. After nine months of peaceful demonstrations, tensions peaked on 28 June when a massive protest held on Belgrade’s Slavija Square – estimated at 140 000 participants – coincided with Serbia’s historic Vidovdan holiday. Police used violence against students and media representatives, resulting in four young protesters being hospitalised. On 4 July, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern about the human rights situation in Serbia and the excessive use of force to curb demonstrations; the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights similarly urged the Serbian authorities to exercise restraint. As of late August 2025, Vučić has hinted at compromise without fully yielding.
The European Parliament resolution of 8 February 2024 on the situation in Serbia following the December 2023 elections pressed for investigations into the reported irregularities. The most recent resolution, of 7 May 2025, on the 2023 and 2024 Commission reports on Serbia, supports European integration of the country while calling on Serbia to accelerate reforms on media freedom, judicial independence and fundamental rights in line with EU standards. It also notes that ‘limited progress has been made in the fight against corruption despite the adoption of a new anti-corruption strategy for 2024-2028’. On 14 May 2025, the European Parliament’s Serbia Delegation attended a meeting of the Subcommittee on Human Rights for an exchange of views on the human rights situation in Serbia in the context of the student-led protests.
Further reading
- Anti-government protests in Serbia, September 2025
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